


The Queen and King of the Jungle

by BeachBunny



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Star Wars Fusion, Damerey Week, F/M, I Will Go Down With This Ship, One Shot, One shot but I'm trying to write a whole story, POV Rey (Star Wars), Poe is a shapeshifter, Protective Poe Dameron, Rey can do magic, Star Wars References, That's Not How The Force Works, The Force is Magic, Uhh Poe doesn't have any clothes when he transforms back, damerey au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-16
Updated: 2020-04-12
Packaged: 2021-02-23 04:21:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23172313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeachBunny/pseuds/BeachBunny
Summary: Poe is a shapeshifter, who can transform into any animal. Rey is an affinitii. She can do an ancient form of nature-based magic called The Force, controlling elements of nature such as fire, wind and water.Together, they team up against The First Order, a conglomerate bent on introducing new technology to the world, destroying everything in their path, killing animals, and enslaving humans including Kes Dameron.
Relationships: BB-8 & Poe Dameron & Rey, Finn & Rey (Star Wars), Poe Dameron & Finn & Rey, Poe Dameron & Rey, Poe Dameron/Rey
Comments: 3
Kudos: 9





	1. The Jaguar

  
Rey is trying to meditate, but finding her concentration is impossible. Poe’s been gone for more than 4 hours, even though he said he’ll only need one. Why did he get held up? Did something happen? Is he okay?

Vaguely, she hears the rustling sounds of someone running through the undergrowth, miles away. Her eyes blink open, and she darts up, picks the nearest tall tree and scales it.

From far away, she can feel him even though she can’t see him yet. She’s strong enough with the ancient magic The Force to sense his presence even though he’s still too far to see, leaping through the bushes towards her general direction.

She jumps down the tree and makes for a clearing near the river. A sleek black jaguar leaps out not ten minutes later, but instead of heading for Rey, it heads straight for the river.

SPLASH.

The jaguar finally stops, and shakes its head. It drinks hungrily from the river, its powerful muscles rippling in the water, its black coat shiny but slick with some blood. Rey waits.

Finally, the jaguar seems to have drunk its fill. Still breathing heavily, it throws back its head with a roar, then transforms back into a human.

Rey looks at Poe, trying not to flush as he comes out of the water. There’s not a single stitch on his body but he remedies that, grabbing his pants, which he’d left hanging on a tree. She’s seen this many times before, watches as Poe shapeshifts from animal to human and back again, but the nudity is something she still finds hard to ignore, no matter how comfortable Poe’s become around her.

Instead, Rey chooses to focus on the claw injuries that mark Poe’s arms and chest, a particularly nasty one running down his left arm. It’s obvious he came out of a fight. Rey enters the water, holds her palms out to the water and closes her eyes to focus.

The Force fills her, and she opens her eyes as the water swirls. She lets the water swirl through her arms, filling with her magic before directing it to Poe.

Poe, now with his pants on, slips a silver ring on a chain around his neck, before allowing the water to surround his injuries. A few moments later, his wounds are healed.

Rey sways before she catches her balance. Poe steps forward to help her, and they both sit at the water’s edge.

Using The Force always drains her, and Rey hasn’t been able to learn how to truly harness her magic. Those who are strong with The Force are called affinitii, and Rey has never met another affinitii like herself yet. She is glad to have met Poe, though. Poe is what they call a shapeshifter, a human who can transform himself (or herself) into any kind of animal. Rey had met him after she escaped the Jakku desert, the place where she was born.

Rey was born in Jakku, a desert rat all her life. She survived the harsh land by pulling water from the air to drink, and anyone trying to use her would find themselves buried in the sand up to their heads. Until she met Finn, a man who offered her a ticket out of the desert hell. He was Rey’s first friend, a man who didn’t actually want anything from her, but told her amazing stories of lush jungles and green forests. Rey could hardly believe that such a place existed, and Finn offered her a ride on his beat-up motorbike.

True to his word, Finn brought her to discover that these jungles and forests were real. She ran through fields, waded through swamps, climbed high mountains and learnt that The Force swirled around everything. She thrived as she meditated alone in the field, or on top of a mountain, the magic in her slowly growing as she taught herself how to flow like the wind, or the ocean waves, how to push, and pull, and find the balance in between.

Still, she wanted more. She wanted to find her parents.

Turns out, so did Finn. He confessed to her one night, that he had been taken away from his village when he was a young boy, and now he sought to return to that village, although he did not know where it was. Rey had struggled with her own parents, not remembering who they were, hoping that one day they would find her. She was done waiting. She would now find them.

It wasn’t so easy, though. The world was big, so much bigger than Rey initially thought. She and Finn had travelled around, bartering and trading whenever they could, Rey fixing broken down machines for extra coin, a skill she had picked up in the Jakku desert. Until they met Poe.

Poe was raised in the Yavin jungle, a place where his father could teach him shapeshifting until his father was taken away. The men of Yavin were rounded up one day, and all strong able-bodied men were taken to a black truck. It was an honour to be chosen, they were told. Until they found out that the men were taken to be used for cheap, hard, labour. Not slaves, no, no, they were paid. But they were given meagre wages for maximum work, and no one was allowed to leave. Poe was just a young boy, but Kes was a strapping man they eyed and took away.

Here, Rey learnt the truth. The world was not just beautiful nature. Poe told her about factories, and buildings made of concrete, technology made by humans to advance the world. Rey thought it sounded great until she saw it with her own eyes. Rivers were polluted because of the factories, fish died in the rivers, trees were pulled down to make way for buildings, birds lost their homes, even small villages were evacuated. Rey saw children crying for their mothers as they watched The First Order destroy their wooden homes.

The First Order. This was the name Poe gave to Rey, and it filled her with so much anger that the ground shook beneath her feet. The First Order was a large conglomerate that caused all of this, that built factories and destroyed homes, that took Kes away. The First Order was to blame.

And here Rey knew that her world had shifted. She still wanted to find her parents, but she also wanted to destroy anything the First Order was doing. Finn was still single-minded in his mission, but Poe felt the same way as Rey. So Rey parted ways with Finn, promising that they would do their best to meet again, but now Rey and Poe had come together for their missions: to find Rey’s parents, to rescue Kes, and to hurt The First Order in any way they could.

Speaking of Poe, he had chosen to lie down, his eyes closed, his chest heaving. Droplets of water glistened on his bare chest, his white shirt still swaying from the tree he left it in. Rey wanted to know what happened to him, but she also dreaded the news.

“They didn’t like it,” Poe finally breathed. “The jaguars. They didn’t like the idea of moving.”

Rey was disappointed, but she expected it. The jaguars were solitary creatures, they did not like to come together as a group, in fact they tended to avoid each other. It was too much to ask for the jaguars to all agree to leave and find new territories, even if the threat of the The First Order was so close to this forest.

“I think they just didn’t trust me enough, either.” Poe shakes his head. “They knew I wasn’t really one of them, and the fact that they could smell human on me made them think I must have been the bad guy too.”

He grins ruefully. “In fact, Amur seemed to think I was staging a mutiny against him, and he attacked me so I would tell him the truth.”

Amur was the strongest male jaguar with the largest territory. Strong and tough, he was also very stubborn. Poe was lucky to get away with so few injuries.

“Do you think they might change their minds?”

“Doubtful. Maybe if they see for themselves how close humans are getting to their territories, maybe they might sit up.”

Rey stretched out. It was difficult to save the wildlife, after all they were essentially asking them to leave behind the homes they grew up in for somewhere foreign. And they had never seen any of the after effects of the destruction caused by The First Order. Rey couldn’t blame them.

“Well, that’s that.” Poe closes his eyes and rests his head again. “I really could use a nice long nap.”

Rey smiles though he can’t see, and gets up. She would catch some fish and make dinner for her and Poe. The sunset was on the horizon, and it would be dark soon. When night rose, she could maybe practise some forms.

***

They had just finished devouring the cooked fish when the sounds came. The ground shook. Startled, Rey’s eyes met Poe’s before they turned towards the mysterious sounds.

“Stay here,” Poe yells, pausing long enough only to stuff his silver necklace into a tree hole before he transformed into an owl and swooped way towards the noise, his shirt and pants forgotten on the forest floor.

Like hell was she going to just stay here. Rey put out the fire, then sprinted in Poe’s direction. She used The Force to push herself faster, and the wind to propel herself upwards when a fallen tree trunk blocked her path. Jumping high into a tree, she used the wind to help herself spring from branch to branch.

She slowed down when she saw Poe-the-owl swoop low. There, she could make out voices talking. A strong female voice rang out.

“Mark these trees over here. This is the perimeter. I want all these trees cleared out by tomorrow morning!”

Rey could just about make out a monstrous machine. Though Poe could probably see them better, she could sense a few men walking around. They seemed to be marking trees with something white.

Then Rey watched in horror as the machine whirred to life and started pulling down trees.

She could see little wildlife scampering away, startled awake, trying to escape away from the place they called home.

She saw red. She crept closer. When the machine stopped and the men began to gather again and talk, she used The Force to try and pry open the bottom of the machine. Poe, understanding what she was trying to do, transformed into a human and used his strength till they had made a large enough opening. He then disappeared into the trees. Rey used The Force to dig into the ground next to the machine, lifting enough soil to fit inside. This would jam the engines. She then manipulated the dirt that was below the machine’s wheels so that the wheels sank deeply into the ground. She considers setting it on fire as well, but it's much too risky.

She could hear the machine being started up again, but this time it sputtered and died. Curses filled the air as the men paused to figure out what happened.

Rey crept away. She hoped they’d done enough for the night. Jogging back to the campsite, she found that Poe had beaten her there, the mighty jaguar transforming back into Poe again. In his arms he cradled a little animal, and he went to grab his shirt not to cover his modesty but to drape around the animal.

“What’s that?” Rey asked, stepping closer.

“A squirrel,” was Poe’s reply, as he shifted it to show her. “I saw it fall out of the tree just as I reached.”

Rey saw red again, but this time she calmed herself down, bustling around to restart the fire, as they nursed the squirrel back to health.

***


	2. When Rey met Finn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Flashback: The first time Rey meets Finn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one-shot has turned into a multi-chaptered story!

  
Rey noticed him within a minute of walking into the bar. Everyone in the Jakku desert covered themselves in muted browns and greys, but this man stood out in his blue jacket and button-up (who wears a button-up in the desert?). His beautiful dark skin, and his smile that showcased a nice set of pearly whites was another oddity, no one here was that happy.

Well, no one seemed very happy here. It was dry and dusty all the time in Jakku. There was nothing to do, nowhere to go, no one had money to buy anything, not that there was anything worth buying.

But this man stood out in this bleak bar, and Rey found herself watching him while nursing a quiet drink.

It was obvious he was new. Newcomers would sometimes pass by, bartering their wares and telling all sorts of stories. Most never stayed. They would drive off as quickly as they came. Rey was sure this man was no exception. Well, if he made it out of here.

After all, he was playing cards with Plutt and gang. She definitely had a bad feeling about this. Plutt was notorious for cheating, and many a newcomer literally had their shirts torn off their backs after losing spectacularly. Some paid the price of bloody noses and cracked ribs when they couldn’t pay their debt.

“I win again!” the blue-jacketed newcomer crowed, jolting Rey out of her thoughts. He stood up, collecting his winnings and somehow doing a little victory dance at the same time. Plutt was grumbling, his eyes bloodshot. They dealt out the cards again and sat for another round.

Rey had just finished off her drink when the cards all folded. This time, Blue Jacket was not so lucky.

“Your luck’s run out!” Plutt jeers as he reveals his winning hand. He greedily collects his winnings as Blue Jacket sighs, but pulls out more coin for the next round.

Another round passes, and Rey notices the guy on Plutt’s left, Teedo, switching out his cards surreptitiously. Of course. Why was she even surprised?

Blue Jacket obviously loses to Teedo, and it seems like he’s finally realizing he should leave. Getting up, he’s just about to gather his things when Plutt stops him.

“You haven’t paid up yet.”

“What?” Blue Jacket is visibly confused. “He’s already taken my share.”

“No, we were playing for double the coin that round.”

Blue Jacket raises his left eyebrow as though to say, _no we didn’t_ , and scoffed. “That’s bull and you know it.” he says.

_Uh oh._

Everyone on the table stood up, cracking their knuckles. Blue Jacket sighed, pausing in contemplation.

Then he grabbed the nearest guy and threw him right over his shoulder!

Rey stared at the man as he went flying right into the wall. He was **four** times bigger than Blue Jacket.

Plutt’s gang paused for a second, before a second man whipped out a knife and charged at Blue Jacket. Blue Jacket evaded the knife gracefully, and kicked the man right in the stomach. He too went flying, and crashed on top of the bar’s grotty chandelier. His body lay swinging. He didn’t come back down.

Rey was mightily impressed.

Teedo ran up to catch Blue Jacket in a headlock, while a fourth began raining punches down his chest. Blue Jacket didn’t even seem perturbed, just casually waiting for them to tire out.

But Rey was tired of this. With a flick of her fingers, she set fire to both the men’s clothes.

They howled when they noticed, and stopped beating Blue Jacket to put out the flames, which only increased in size. When they both realized the futility, they stopped, dropped and rolled.

Plutt gazed at the action, then his beady eyes whipped towards Rey. Uh oh, she thinks again.

Crack! 

A large chunk of rock ceiling suddenly dislodged and fell on the table. The guy on Plutt’s right was crushed. Rey wished she aimed a little more to her right. But then again, she kind of depended on Plutt for survival too. Plutt was mean, but he knew Rey’s value, and he had struck a grudging relationship with her. Plutt would take care of her, giving her the best deal on ration portions compared to anyone else in this desert. His men weren’t off-limits if they burdened her, though.

She ran up to Blue Jacket, as he stared at the fallen rock. “Come on!” she whispered hurriedly, grabbing his hand. Without a backward glance, they both rushed out of the bar.

Rey set on a jog, but Blue Jacket pointed to a beat up motorbike. He jumped on, and Rey settled behind him. And then they were off.

Finn was his name, he told her much later. They’d managed to shake off Plutt’s tail, whizzing past the Sinking Fields. No one would come this way, it was too much of an effort. Finn and Rey sat side-by-side watching the sun rise.

“Where are you going?” Rey asked. “Lah’mu,” was his reply. “I’m hoping to find someone there.”

“That’s a long ride from here.” Not that Rey knew actually, she had never been anywhere outside the Jakku desert.

“Yeah,” Finn laughed. “It’s a long way West, then I need to get on a boat to get there. But it’ll be worth it if I find her.”

“Besides,” he stretched his legs out, “I’ve been travelling for the last 4 years. I like being on the road.”

“Wow,” Rey said, still thinking about him getting on a boat. A boat meant **an ocean**. “I’ve never even left Jakku.”

Finn looked at her incredulously. “What? Why? You and your family should just go live somewhere nicer. No offense, but **anywhere** is nicer than here.”

Rey shook her head. “I don’t have family. I…” she automatically went to the ring on her left hand.

“Don’t want to leave your boyfriend?” Finn’s voice is slightly soft. Rey doesn’t imagine the relief on his face when she shakes her head.

“A boat sounds like fun.” she says instead.

“Yeah well, that’s the best way to get to Lah’mu. Can’t ride there, and ship’s way too expensive.”

Rey stayed quiet, twisting the ring on her third finger. The only thing she had left that tied her to her family.

Ever since she could remember, she had this heavy silver ring. It bore an inscription, but Rey never knew the meaning of it. It looked like a word but in a strange language. No one could translate this word for her, although she had asked all the villagers, and even newcomers who passed by Jakku. No one here even recognised the language.

Maybe, she wondered, maybe my parents aren’t from here? And maybe if I find someone who knows this language, I’ll be closer to finding out where my parents are, or where they come from?

She had waited for them her whole life. She was done waiting.

“You got room for one more on that boat?”

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (To clarify, in this universe, everything is on one planet. So the Jakku desert, Yavin jungle, Lah’mu, etc, are all different areas on the same planet.)

**Author's Note:**

> Holy shite, this work literally wrote itself. I have absolutely no idea where this story was headed. Literally this fic was born out of the image of a jaguar in the water transforming into Poe. And well jaguars don't need clothes... 
> 
> So this is meant to be a one-shot, but I'd really like to see how we can turn this into a full story? Throw me some ideas and maybe we could work out a story together? Here's what I've got so far: 
> 
> Poe is a shapeshifter, who can transform into any animal. He was raised in the Yavin jungle, before his father was taken away to be The First Order slave.  
> Rey is an affinitii, in tune with nature and The Force.  
> The Force is an ancient form of nature-based magic. Force users are called affinitii, and can control elements of nature, such as creating and manipulating fire, water and wind (similar to the benders in Avatar). 
> 
> The world is moving towards technology, and society is having less and less connection to nature and The Force. Rey and Poe came together because a conglomerate The First Order is destroying the natural landscape to build factories and buildings, which destroys lands and displaces animals and villages. 
> 
> Rey will meet Ben Solo / Kylo Ren, another affinitii, the first one that she meets other than herself. He is part of The First Order, and fills her mind with ideas that The First Order is doing the right thing by combining nature and technology (but later she realises it is to destructive purposes). 
> 
> Kes Dameron will definitely appear! I just don't know how or when. He is a 'slave' for The First Order, and he is kept prisoner and forced to do manual labour. Seeing that Kes taught Poe, Kes is also most likely a shapeshifter.
> 
> I'd really like for Finn to reappear somewhere too. 
> 
> BB-8 is the squirrel of course!
> 
> The style of this story is basically similar to Sheena, Queen of the Jungle meets Avatar: The Last Airbender.


End file.
